Here’s the good news: if you stay in California coastal waters, you’re not in pirate country.
On the other hand, according to the chart, there have been incidents near Sicily and in the Bay of Biscay (western France).
Sailboats are particularly vulnerable due their slow speed. I can’t think of any sailboat that can outrun a RIB packing 400 horses on the transom.
If you click on the map, you’ll go to the site that offers a service that let’s you track piracy attempts.
I have never had desire to sail the Indian Ocean … or the Straits of Sunda. Now, in addition to being way-the-hell-&-gone on the other side of the earth and in addition to being hot, humid and mildewed to the max, you could get killed simply because you have a boat and are suspected of having money.
Given those parameters, can you think of another coast (one close to here that is also impoverished) that might become home to modern-day pirates?
It’s that time of year, the time when I try to explain to my nav class how tides, tide tables, tidal current and all the other things make sailing into San Francisco Bay so much fun and such a challenge.
Little did I realize that the tides are not a function (mostly) of the moon’s gravitational effect on the earth’s surface. Nope. It’s divine, at least according to Bill O’Reilly.
Fortunately, Bill doesn’t use the tides as an example of intelligent design, because the variability of tides worldwide might put a big question mark on intelligent design. (Many believe that there are two high and two low tides a day. True … in most places. Some places, there are but one of each).
So, if you’re in my nav class and don’t quite understand how the tide tables work, do not fret. Just invoke Bill O’Reilly, God or Neil deGrasse Tyson. You’ll ace the test.
“Manson Construction will be performing continuous dredging operations of Channel Islands Harbor from 06 Dec 10 until 21 Jan 11. The hydraulic
dredge HR MORRIS, dredge tenders PUP and CUB, and derrick barges FREYA and RENEGADE will be on site and monitoring VHF-FM Chan. 13 and
67. Mariners are requested to use extreme caution and contact the dredge HR MORRIS for passing instructions. For more details or comments
contact Frank Bechtolt at 562-762-5367, Dredge Captain Fred Franks at 562-762-5396, or dredge HR MORRIS at 562-762-5259.”
Ventura Harbor
Kinnetic Laboratories and AMEC Geomatrix will be conducting sediment core sampling from 14 Dec 10 until 23 Dec 10, 0700 to 1800 daily, in the
Federal Entrance Channel and northern Sand Trap Area of Ventura harbor, CA. The R/V DW HOOD and skiff will be on scene monitoring VHF-FM
Chan. 16. DW HOOD will 3 point anchor for up to an hour to collect samples. All vessels are requested to keep 100 ft outside of anchor spread.
For more details or comments contact Ken Kronschnabl at 831-457-3950.
Mai Tai ashore at northwest end of Channel Islands Harbor near the world-famous Rudder Room. Photo: Rob Walton
An evening sail turns into a nightmare for Mai Tai
It’s always easy to pass judgment when you’re viewing the wreckage the day after. Nice to look at it in the light of day and pontificate. And I’ve heard a lot of that (and done a fair amount myself), but as we used to say in Naval Aviation: There’s no point in having accidents if you don’t learn something from them.
Discounting, at least for the purposes of this discussion, the obvious preventatives – waiting until daylight so that he could see, or turning away from the beach when the depth gauge showed 15 feet or so, what are the other actions he could have taken?
Let’s just say that he had to come in that entrance and that he had to make the approach fairly close to the beach, how could he have set himself up better? How could he have used his GPS better? How might a hand-bearing compass have helped him out?
A quick aside – the captain did do some stuff right: He did deploy the anchor, but the rode parted; they did call in a Mayday; they were wearing life jackets and they successfully walked ashore.
We met a guy on the beach digging near the keel the day after the incident, who told us that the owner of the boat “sold” it to a passer-by, a guy simply walking the beach. Digging guy was walking guy’s friend. They were going to excavate before trying to tow it off the beach.
If the owner did actually unload the wreck and pass the pollution and clean-up responsibility to someone else, well that was one very excellent move.
There’s a bottle of champagne going to the best answer on how the captain might have prevented this accident by using a fundamental navigation techniques. Something you learned in ASA 105 or similar basic nav class.
Put your answer in the comment section below.
//
BTW – here’s the link to the Ventura County Star story. the story isn’t great, but the comments are fun.
The Brig Pilgrim is the setting for Richard Henry Dana's tale of California sea adventure in "Two Years Before the Mast."
Two Years Before the Mast
sat unread in the rail in the forepeak of Wiley for a dozen years. I don’t know where that book went. It may have turned to dust over the last decade of sailing, but I got interested in the book again a couple of weeks ago when I found it in the FREE listing in my Kindle.
And so I dived in again. My first attempt at the book got me not much further than page 50, but I’m just about done this time around and have found it fascinating.
It’s certainly an important book to anyone interested in California history and it’s a great place to come up with trivia to amaze and confuse even the MASTER RATER, THE RANGER and the other denizens of Channel Islands Harbor.
I can’t quite get my memory around this one, but I’m trying to memorize these lines. Don’t know when I’ll launch them, but there will be an appropriate time, possibly involving beer, to do that. Here it is – I think you have to yell this in a commanding tone, so I’ll be practicing that – the commanding tone – on the dogs:
Set up the lee rigging, fish the spritsail yard, lash the galley, and bring tackles upon the martingale. Bowse it; bowse it to windward, lads.
Other than lads and set up, I haven’t a clue what any of that means. But I do know what it means to face the Southeast storm that he talks about. Repeatedly.
After “doubling” The Horn, you’d think that weather wouldn’t be much of a bother to these seamen, but when they were in the Santa Barbara Channel in the fall they prepared for it every time they anchored. In fact, when anchoring in Santa Barbara, they’d set the hook three miles offshore at this time of year.
What’s more, they’d rig the anchor so that it could be jettisoned when the wind kicked up and backed to the Southeast.
My Santa Ana strategy is not quite so conservative. I am ready, however, to leave a stern anchor behind on a buoy if needs be. Nor do I snug in to a far western wall when in Pelican, Alberts or Willows as I would in summer. Plus we make more frequent weather checks than we do at other times of year, going on deck to check for eastern breeze, east or south swell or dry decks.
In an emergency, we’re ready to jettison both anchors, but unlike Pilgrim, we have a power windlass. But the biggest difference is that Pilgrim was a square rigger, capable of getting not much closer than about 70 degrees of apparent wind. They’d have to backwind headsails to fill the mains and topsails, so they needed plenty of room to the lee to make that maneuver. We, happily, have a mighty Yanmar, which we fire up at the first sign of easterly wind.
We were surprised (twice) by unforecast Santa Anas last year. Until then, we had great confidence in NOAA. If they don’t mention Santa Anas, you’re not necessarily safe. If they do forecast a Santa Ana …. they’re not often wrong. In either case, have a plan, brief your crew and check the weather throughout the night.
![[Facebook]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[Twitter]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
